The IATO elections, held at The Ashok, New Delhi, saw both new and old members being elected for its Executive Committee. The EC allied members are Zia Siddiqui of Alliance Hotels & Resorts, Sunil Gupta of Travel Bureau and P Vijayasarathi of Benchmark Hotels. The active EC members are Raj Bajaj of Adventure World India, Tony Marwah of India Travel Promotion Company, PS Duggal of Minar Travels India, Deepak Bhatnagar of Aamantaran Travel Company and Viney Tyagi of Uni Crystal Holidays.

EM Najeeb, Managing Director, Air Travel Enterprises has been elected as the Senior Vice President at the IATO elections. Another new entrant in the core committee of IATO is Rajesh Mudgill, Managing Director, Planet India Travel, who has been elected as the Honorary Secretary. Thanking everyone for the victory, Najeeb said, “It’s a great honour and pleasure for me to have been elected as the senior VP of a prestigious association such as IATO. I want to assure my wholehearted commitment and support for serving this organisation with my team members by work together to reach newer heights.” Confirming his earlier membership with IATO, Mudgill said, “I would like to thank the IATO members for their support. I have worked with many members of this team in the past and want to reassure everybody that we will now work together. I am confident I will be able to take my members’ voices to my team and resolve their issues.”          

The Indian Association of Tour Operators held its election on April 28, 2018 and announced the new team for the 2018-20 period. The returning officer for the election was Akshay Kumar, Vice Chairman, Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism & Hospitality (FAITH). Pronab Sarkar has been re-elected as the President unopposed, while Rajiv Mehra was also re-elected as the Vice President unopposed. Ravi Gosain is the new Treasurer and Rajnish Kaistha is the new Joint Secretary, both of whom were elected unopposed too. The voting was conducted for the position of Senior Vice President, Honorary Secretary as well as EC Members in the EC active and allied category. Pronab Sarkar, President, IATO said, “We are glad that the members have chosen us to represent them at IATO. The new team has a few new members and I am sure they will bring new ideas to be implemented to build a better working atmosphere in the association. I congratulate the new team and welcome all of them to work for the members together.”

Aptech has partnered with GVK Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport Mumbai (CSIA) to train 700 CISF personnel in soft skills and to assist first-time travellers transiting through Mumbai’s domestic airport. Mumbai airport, the busiest single runway airport in the world, has been recognised as the world’s best airport  by Airports Council International for service quality that caters to 970-980 flights daily. The Airport Council International has identified 217 subjective service attributes and 52 objective ones in calculating the level of service (LOS) standard. Thus, ensuring high standards of customer service at airports becomes a crucial but tedious exercise. The decision to upskill and train under the expert team from Aptech Aviation was necessary to ensure that the customer satisfaction levels are kept high. Commenting on this partnership, Vishal Mehra, Senior Vice-President & Head of Industry Connects, Alliances & Placements, Aptech says, “Airport need to response rapidly to the changes of air passenger in order to meet their demands. Passenger satisfaction is increasingly important that may impact reputation and long-term profits of airports. Aptech has over two decade’s experience in training and skilling resources across 40 countries. With this partnership, Aptech Aviation will train approximately 700 CISF personnel in new-age soft-skills so that customer engagement and travel experience shall remain the top priority.”

Vistara has become the third Indian carrier to be a member of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the trade association of more than 280 airlines, which will help it provide a seamless travel experience through an extended global network to travellers to and from India. Vistara, the full-service carrier promoted by Tata Sons Limited and Singapore Airlines Limited (SIA), recently became eligible to start international operations. Air India and Jet Airways are the two other airlines in India that are IATA members. The IATA membership will enable Vistara to collaborate with other international member airlines for codeshare and interline agreements, and provide a seamless travel experience through an extended global network to travellers to and from India, the airline said in a statement. IATA represents airlines from over 120 countries. It advocates for the interests of airlines across the globe, establishes standards to simplify process and increase passenger convenience, and helps airlines to operate safely, efficiently and economically. “This membership couldnt have come at a better time as we gear up to launch our international operations soon. Vistara has set new benchmarks for air travel in India, and with IATA?s membership we are confident to showcase Vistara’s strengths on a global scale,” Leslie Thng, Vistara chief executive officer said. Conrad Clifford, Regional Vice President, Asia Pacific, IATA, said they were looking forward to working with Vistara in shaping IATA’s priorities for India and the global aviation industry.   Source: PTI

The Ministry of Tourism in collaboration with Google India has launched a 360° Virtual Reality (VR) experience video for the global “Incredible India” tourism campaign. Incredible India in 360 degrees takes through a journey across Hampi, Goa, Delhi and Amritsar, and will explore the places and people that make each of these iconic Indian sites incredible. Describing India as a destination of diverse experiences, KJ Alphons, Union Minister of State (I/C) for Tourism said, “India is an iconic destination that offers unique experiences of climate, geography, culture, art, literature, and food”. The minister also said that government wants to give people in India and across the world an opportunity to immerse in our country’s rich heritage. And, through the partnership with Google, it wants to engage new and global audiences and offer them immersive content in a never-before-seen manner. The minister added that taking virtual reality to the common man at a low-free cost will further enable an increase in the tourist footfall in Iconic monuments and other tourist destinations with a focus on Museums.

Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC) has signed multiple Letter of Intent (LOI) agreements with leading hotel chains, tourism companies and potential investors at the recently-concluded Arabian Travel Market (ATM) 2018. The agreements is the first step towards identification of partners to collaborate on the large opportunities of promotion of the State of Maharashtra as a medical tourism hub. Collaboration with large brands like BlueBay Hotels and Flora Hospitality has been signed to explore the areas of management and development of existing tourism locations in Maharashtra. In a bid to start identification of potential development and investment, agreements were signed with Eram Group and ITL Group offices from United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to promote Maharashtra as a preferred destination for medical, wellness, cultural, experiential and heritage tourism. Vijay Waghmare, Managing Director, MTDC said, “Arabian Travel Market 2018 was our first step towards creating a sustained campaign for promotion and establishment of Maharashtra to a wider international audience. Our participation in ATM 2018 was a huge success as we achieved our objectives of creating visibility and it has paved a way towards creating a roadmap for the state. We are looking forward to the next steps discussed with the partners and we are expecting some advancements in our mission for the State of Maharashtra by the next edition of ATM.”

OYO is betting big on the Indian hotel market by partnering with hotels and real estate assets with large inventory portfolio consisting of 100+ rooms under its franchisee and management contracts. In the coming years, it aspires to have 10,000+ rooms as a part of its large-asset category. Currently, OYO has already partnered with 12 such hotels and is managing them across markets including Delhi, Goa, Bengaluru, Tirupati, Hyderabad, Noida, Vrindavan and Patna. Commenting on the milestone, Maninder Gulati, Chief Strategy Officer, OYO said, “This excitement we are witnessing in the large 100+ rooms property space post establishing our market leadership with 75,000 keys in boutique and small assets is a testament of the strong and trusted brand we have created with our asset partners and customers. We are thankful to them for their continued support. At OYO, our mission is to add value to every form of real estate and being a full-stack hospitality company, we’ve built capabilities of on-boarding hotel rooms, locked homes, serviced apartments and at the same time managing large-format hotels.” “In the past year, we’ve on-boarded over 10+ such hotels with inventory ranging from 100-200 rooms and another 10+ hotels having over 80 rooms. With similar additions in the coming months, we’ll continue to expand our large hotel portfolio and dominance over India’s hotel market while ensuring high yield for our partners. We are upbeat about our India story and plan to go deeper into our existing markets while adding 50+ cities to the network  and capturing a 5% share of India’s hotel market by 2018-end,” Gulati said.

The Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL) has announced its new Taj Hotel in Lonavala after signing a management contract with Wilds and Water Developers, a part of the Kakade Group. The announcement strengthens its position of having the largest number of leisure hotels in the country. Suma Venkatesh, Executive Vice President, Real Estate & Development, IHCL said, “We are delighted to partner with the Kakade Group in bringing our latest leisure offering to Lonavala. Consolidating our presence across key leisure circuits has always been our focus and Lonavala presents the right opportunity as a getaway for travellers in and around Mumbai and Pune.” The Taj branded resort will be conveniently located with easy access through the Mumbai – Pune expressway. Nestled along the serene waters of Lake Pawana, amidst the picturesque hills, the sprawling address will span over 30 acres of land and include 150 guest rooms, an all-day diner, a specialty restaurant and a bar. Vikram Kakade,  Kakade Group said, “We are proud to partner with the iconic Taj brand and bring their famed hospitality to Lonavala. With this partnership we along with our development partner, David Lazarus aim to create a first-of-its kind Taj resort in Maharashtra, and provide a unique experience to our customers.” Lonavala is a tranquil small town that has emerged as a leading tourist destination in Maharashtra. A scenic hill station, it has for years been a favourite of travellers from Mumbai and Pune.

As its first route to India, Air Italy is set to begin operations to Mumbai from October 31, 2018. The new service will operate between Mumbai and Milan with an Airbus A330-200, offering 24 flatbed seats in Business Class and 228 seats in Economy Class. This will be the Italy-based airlines’ fourth new international destination to be served from its Milan Malpensa hub. Air Italy will offer five weekly flights between Milan Malpensa and Mumbai and will be the only non-stop flight between Italy and Mumbai. This new route between Milan and Mumbai comes after the earlier announcements of new routes from Milan Malpensa to New York and Miami starting in June 2018 and to Bangkok starting from September 2018. The new service to Mumbai will operate the following schedule and is open for sale. Flight schedules are effective from October 31, 2018.  The Milan Malpensa (MXP) flight to Mumbai (BOM) IG 927 departs at 14:20 hrs and arrives at 02:50 hrs on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.  The Mumbai (BOM) to Milan Malpensa flight (MXP) IG 928 departs at 04:50 hrs and arrives at 09:20 hrs on the same days.